Shadow Realm Halfling

When darkness swallowed the shadowy faerie realm, many halflings fled to the waking continent, but those who stayed have been reshaped by their worsening world. They are now its most numerous living mortals, and the gentle, equal village life they once knew has vanished. A few, corrupted, rule domains; most are slaves to the realm's many powers; and small bands still resist, hoping to drive out the shadows. None of them knows real peace.

Status shapes the body. Domain lords eat best and live easiest, standing about 4 feet tall, usually paunchy, and draped in bright, fine robes, crowns, rings and jewels. Slaves rarely exceed 3 feet; they are gaunt, haunted-eyed and dressed in drab homespun, their health worn down by constant fear. Freedom fighters, hunting their own food and training for war, are fitter than either, and their eyes still shine with life and hope.

Skills depend on station. Every halfling here gains a surprise edge unless wearing metal armor: non-halfling foes take -4 on surprise rolls, or -2 if a door or screen must be opened first. Hardy Constitutions grant +3 on saves vs. poison, spells, rods, staves and wands, though slaves get only +2. Life in endless twilight has given them all 60-foot infravision.

Domain lords leave fighting to 2d6 trained bodyguards armed with short swords and crossbows (AC 6, 2 HD, THAC0 18), defending themselves if needed with short swords (1d6), daggers held or thrown (1d4+1), spells and fey glamour. As servants of the Frost Horseman they cast eight priest spells a day (3/3/2) from this list: command, bless or curse, cure or cause light wounds, remove or cause fear, protection from good or evil; enthrall, obscurement, charm person or mammal; speak with dead, animate dead, and cure or cause disease and blindness or deafness.

Slaves forced to fight for masters take -1 to attack and damage, but fight normally for themselves or their families. Usually denied weapons, they grab what they can: slings (1d4+1), knives (1d3, +1 thrown), hand axes (1d6, +1 thrown) and sickles (1d4+1).

Freedom fighters favor leather armor for its quiet and prefer short bows (1d6), slings and thrown daggers (1d4+1 each) at range and short swords (1d6) up close, though they will fight with clubs, stools or frying pans if pressed. A backstab, made as a 5th-level thief, deals triple damage and have these skills: hide in shadows 90%, move silently 70%, climb walls 50%, detect noise 50%, find/remove traps 35%, open locks 35%.

Lords and freedom fighters alike may, once per day, use dimension door or a 10th-level shadow walk, gliding along the borders of the realm's shadows to cover long distances; freedom fighters do this so often that they know the realm better than any native save perhaps the seelie faeries.

The mightiest halflings have mastered fey glamour. Domain lords wield it well to keep subjects in line but see through others' illusions poorly, having spent years forcing the world to match their wishes. Freedom fighters have had to learn to see past it to survive; except for former slaves they cannot fully manipulate it, but they study it to put it to nobler use. Slaves know only a little and use it as escape, such as making a thin meal look like a feast; some lords ignore such harmless tricks, while others ban all glamour as a dangerous form of empowerment.

Domain lords seized power as evil rose, corrupted by the dark god and his servants and often climbing over their kin's bodies. They rule landed or trade domains as other rulers do, but as harsh tyrants using terror and violence, tactics born of fear of stronger neighbors that are now part of their nature.

Slaves, the great majority, serve either halfling lords or other evil masters. All delight in life has been crushed from them; they live silently and fearfully, hoping only to get through another day without somehow drawing their masters' wrath.

The rebels operate in scattered small groups that slip into slave communities and spend months stirring revolt. Most uprisings fail and most rebels die, but survivors join the bands. Some fighters keep hidden havens where freed slaves train as warriors or support the cause by making weapons, sewing and cooking. Knowing a handful of rebels cannot change a world where the shadows lengthen daily, they may ally with outside champions, but freeing their own people comes first.

Domain lords worship the Frost Horseman as a god, and in return he seeds them with a fragment of his own being as a tainted bloodline. They believe the land is theirs and drain its meager resources with no thought for the future. Slaves farm the few fertile patches, hunt, fish and clear land, with most of the harvest going to their masters. The rebels forage and hunt, never taking more than they require, and the lords' waste disgusts them. Though these halflings share ancestry with those of the continent, the two peoples now have little else in common.